06/08/2015

Victoria has been really into reporting about things. She asked me to make this video when we built boats a few weeks ago with our friends.

I have to admit... I had no idea what I was doing, the editing helped a little bit, but the camera work definitely needs improvement. Hopefully I get better... she was awfully comfortable being in front of the camera ;)

06/04/2015

The story of Izabel Laxamana that is going around the internet right now reminded me of something very important that we have a tendency to forget as adults: how dependent of their looks our young adults are.

This young girl's suicide came shortly after her father shaved her head for the purpose of punishing her. Every family chooses to parent the way they see fit, and sometimes things go awry. I'm actually surprisingly familiar with the idea of shaving a child's head if they are not listening to their parents because of my youth in France. I had an Eastern European violin teacher, who would pull this stunt once in a while if a (male) child had not practiced hard enough. The French parents did not appreciate what was done, but they accepted it as a cost to having the best violin teacher they could ever ask for.

However, even he, would have never cut off the hair of a young girl.

Why is that? This teacher had no qualms shaving off boys' heads, smacking all of his student's upside the head with his bow... he even slapped a child here and there if he felt we really didn't work hard enough. And yet, he would have never shaved a girl's head.

I believe that while he felt corporal punishment was ok, he also understood that destroying a part of a child's identity was going too far. Boys do not tend to care about their hair in our culture, they routinely shear their heads either to stay cool in the summer, or because they do not want to style their hair for a month or two... Girls on the other hand, realize very early on that hair is a prized quality in most cultures around our world. My daughter has gone back and forth about wanting to cut her hair short, but ultimately cannot help but want her hair to grow to Rapunzel lengths because she has already learned that: "long hair is beautiful".

I, myself, as an adult, managed to get reprimands after cutting my hair short by a few people... "But your beautiful hair... why would you want to do that?" And if I even suggest that I might get a pixie cut, the outcry is multiplied.

As a teenager, the only thing that truly defines you, is how you look. From your hair to your clothes, we forget how much adolescence is spent on figuring out who you are through those outlets. I'm not saying that all teenagers are shallow and only care about what they wear, even though that's exactly what they are doing. What I mean is that endeavor of clothes and hair, and style, is not shallow in the least... through it our teenagers are assessing who they are and what they can be/do in society. Without that base knowledge of who they are through what they look like, teenagers can very easily feel extremely lost.

I remember the angst, in those days, of having misplaced a favorite necklace or ruining a skirt that I felt I needed in order to be "myself" throughout the day. The pull of those first clothes that you choose in order to show the world who you are, is so strong that many adults still have one or two pieces of clothing that they wore in high school hidden in the back of their closet. Not because they care about the cut of the jeans, or they think they are going to wear that jacket once again, but because there is so much emotional attachment to those simple objects that started defining you as you were growing into an adult.

Losing your hair in such a way, as a teenager, has serious repercussions, and they are not healthy ones. The loss of self esteem that would be joined to such an act is, obviously, one that can be deadly. We, as parents, need to try and remember those feelings of inadequacy that we also experienced at that age, and promise to lift our teenagers up rather than crush them down. There are many different ways to discipline our children, shaming them and especially taking away their identity is not one that we should condone in our society.

05/04/2015

Lately, Victoria has been back to her non-sleep pattern where she squirms and cries the whole night. From being able to sleep the night away in her bed, she goes to needing to be held and massaged all night long. I know that the pattern usually goes hand in hand with a growth spurt so I am used to this... but it does not make it any easier for the family as a whole.

Sometimes she naps during the day... blessed hours!

So I've been off in my own little world, recuperating... taking things very, very slow. Staying close to home and trying to figure out how to deal with the exhaustion. It's actually been a really nice break. I felt guilty maybe once or twice about abandoning the blog, but realized that having healthy family time and ME time, was way more important than any blog ever will be.

We started a few weeks of cuddling, reading, and going to very local spots to have playdates. My usual running around all over town, and doing three or four different things every day got cut back completely. At this point I have the energy for one outing a day, more than that I have to admit I get a bit grumpy. Granted we are still outdoors for at least 4-5 hours every day, but it's a big cut back from out usual.

Baby Praying Mantis

First ducklings of the season

Through all this new staying at home pattern, I've found a few things that help me stay connected with my "ME"... I think a lot of what you lose as a parent, is your sense of self. You have this other being attached to you all the time, whose needs you have to prioritize even when you try to have a balanced life... It is easy when you are taking care of a family to forget who you are, what makes you you, what you enjoy in life.

So I thought for a while and realized that one of the things I miss the most of being a younger me, with no strings attached, was the time I spent sending letters. I used to write pen pals all over the world, and exchange long, involved, philosophical letters with people who I connected with on a very emotional level, even if it was never a face-to-face interaction. I took up the pen, looked for pen pals a bit everywhere from Instagram to Swap-bot... and am now writing to quite a few new friends, and it's making me extremely happy.

Sending off a quick watercolor sketch to a new penpal

I also finally went through my entire stash of fabric... fabrics that I've been accumulating for years thinking that I'll make something... soon... No more of this, I now have pulled out patterns, fabrics, and hope to have enough support through friends to start sewing asap! I've always done everything free handed, so I'm going to try and learn how to use patterns this time around! Wish me luck!

And finally, I've worked on a few projects that I absolutely adore working on, but that I often put on the back burner because they are not crucial to the functioning of the family unit of course! My art dolls!

04/13/2015

Every homeschooling family's path has a beginning. Some of us know from the get-go that we do not want to send our children to school, and some of us stumble on this path because we observe an emotional or academic need in our child that is not being met in the school system. Either way, starting homeschooling can be a worrisome thing. So many books, so many ways... where do I start and am I enough? The questions just fly in those first months.

There are two videos that I show to everyone who is thinking of an alternative kind of education for their children. Now of course, these kids are one of a kind, but the important thing to remember is that: so are your kids! Think about that statement for a second...

YOUR CHILD IS ONE OF A KIND.

How amazing is that thought? By allowing him a home education you can adjust everything in order to nurture that fact. Take a few minutes to watch these two teenagers talk about their experience in learning.

-Jacob Barnett

-Logan LaPlante

One of the most important things I tell families who are starting homeschooling with children and who have just come from the public system, is to NOT school. Give yourselves a few months, even a year to do nothing. Really it will depend on you and your child to figure out exactly how long you need to do what I call a "detox". Stay at home, sleep in late, watch ridiculous amounts of television or play on the xbox for a few weeks straight... follow your children's lead. Let them recuperate from their school experience. If they still want to do worksheets by all means encourage them, but usually that is the last thing on their mind.

Don't worry. I know it's hard at first, but you will know when the period of "detox" is done. Your child will start asking you questions about the world around him. They will want to go outside, meet some friends, start reading again. For some, this only takes a few days to happen. For others, it's closer to the year mark.

Once that change starts, follow their lead... try to figure out first and foremost what their learning style is. Are they auditory learners that need to talk things through in order to really comprehend them? Do they need to touch everything and graple with concepts in a hands on kind of way (kinestetic)? Or is it easier for them as visual learners to comprehend something while watching a movie, or having you write things on a board? This will allow you to decide what your homeschool life is going to be like. Are you going to hackschool the way Logan LaPlante does? Unschool the way Jacob Barnett learns? Or simply find a more conservative curriculum that follows a style of learning that is beneficial for your child? These are all questions that will be so much easier to answer once you have uncovered who your child truly is, without all of the trappings that the public school system had burried her under.

During the time that you'll be re-discovering your child, the most important thing to remember is the balance of family life. Nurture connection, communication and calm in your house. Make sure that you have family meals, and discuss what the hopes are for everyone in the household. What are you interested in building, as a family, now that you are homeschooling? This also applies to families who are starting to homeschool their younger children. Always discuss your family goals and hopes! Children have great ideas to implement, and it will give you a spring board on which to build up your homeschooling environment.

Does your child want to focus on science? Then you know to go heavy on those lessons in your curriculum with them. Do they want to go out in the world and help others? Then you can build your homeschooling experience around good deeds: like cooking for others, helping build houses and learning math in the process, etc. Don't get stuck in believing that there is only one way to learn things, but instead, through your children's eyes, explore all the different learning possibilities that will make education significant for your family.

The other important thing for homeschoolers is community, building a community both online (through this blog and others that inspire you), and in person, is vital for both parents and children. Being able to toss out ideas to other people who are going through the same thing you are is invaluable! So, read and connect, comment, ask questions, and find a homeschool group that makes you happy and fulfilled. We are here to answer your questions, and provide you with outlets that you can count on!

Good Luck... You are starting on a journey with your family that may lead to your most fulfilling experiences yet!

04/06/2015

Victoria loves washing her little craft table, but I thought that we'd make a bot that could help her make clean up time even more fun(ny)... I'm not sure whether this is good parenting... I'm basically teaching her how to be a lazy house keeper! But it certainly is a lot of fun.

All you need is a scrub brush, two battery casings (and the batteries to go in it) and two vibrating motors. Well, we used two, but you could go smaller and just have the scrub brush move with one motor and battery combo.

Hook up the motors to the batteries, hot glue everything in place on top of the scrub brush, and let the bubbles begin!

I used to buy my vibrating motors at the electronics store, and they were quite expensive. The other week though, I asked my local makerspace where they purchased all their items... and guess what? You can get large vibrating motors from the dollar store! Simply grab their vibrating toothbrushes and recycle the motor that is inside of them! (You even get a free battery with it) I'll never spend $5 on a motor again!

Let's see what you guys can come up with as small, fun robots! Post links or photos in the comments!

04/03/2015

{this moment} ~ A Friday ritual as inspired by SouleMama. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

03/19/2015

There is a new video, from Jimmy Kimmel's show, of him interrogating a young boy with a make shift lie detector. Hilarity ensues: the little boy gets told that his answers are somehow wrong, that he is lying, and viewers watch his confusion and embarrassment mount.

I won't even post the video here as I find it extremely offensive. Honestly when I watched it, I was close to tears several times as I watched the face of this beautiful, innocent child get more and more worried and embarrassed, and his own eyes fill up with tears a couple of times. The video ends with the child saying a bad word and everybody finding it "cute", another instance of belittling the child.

This is not funny... it is not humor. It's cruel. Jimmy Kimmel is also well known for his Halloween trick of asking parents to send in videos of themselves telling their children they ate all of their Halloween candy and filming the ensuing panic/anger/cries... And it seems to me that every adult in our country supports him in these endeavors, and it angers me to no end.

This is all under the guise that we need to "toughen" up our children... that it's all in good fun and that since we didn't "really" do it, then there is no harm done. No harm done... no, none, really... other than showing your children that they cannot trust you. That their own parents, the ones that they believe in, the ones who should always tell them the truth (that's another post I'll write soon)... the ones they trust implicitly, are happy to lie as long as it causes laughter.

Kids do not need to be toughened up by mean spirited jokes. Children are toughened up by the world around them, each and every day. We, as adults forget the difficulty of childhood. We think that children are just playing their life away and that they need to learn how things really are in the "big mean world"... but children are already learning these lessons.

They are learning work by doing their chores (which hopefully you give them), they are constantly disappointed by the fact that we tell them "No" all the time throughout their childhood (wether it's through that word or by setting firm boundaries). They are learning what their place is in the world every single day by interacting with everyone around them, and they are learning how to share and deal with anger/sadness/betrayal in their playground scuffles with their friends. The world is already tough on children.

That world of laughter and play that we, as adult, claim is heaven, is actually filled with disappointment and learning experiences. Kids already know that the world is big and sometimes bad, and they are learning to navigate that as well as they can with their limited experience, and they do a pretty darn good job of it too!

As adults and parents, our job is not to toughen them up, but rather to help them in any way we can to make all of those discoveries. To be there in their disappointments and not to make them untrusting of adults, and of life in general.

Yes, Jimmy Kimmel's skits are quick and funny jokes, things that mostly disappear after a while, but it is a slippery slope... is this a one time thing, or are you playing these kinds of jokes on your children often, and creating a sense of foreboding and mistrust in your child? What upsets me the most is that this comedian is influencing a large population in our country, making it ok for these kinds of things to be done to children. Making it funny... hilarious even! People share his posts all the time, laughing the entire time at the pain of these children. Children ARE extreme in their emotions, and yes, it can be funny to watch the reactions that they have over something that WE find inoffensive. But laughing at anyone's discomfort and pain is certainly not something that I want to see in my family, whether it's from the adults or the children.

03/16/2015

I've been quiet for two weeks... Immediately after writing this post a huge fear of sharing it grabbed me, to the point where I couldn't write or share anything else... I was stuck! I wanted to share this post, but sharing private things about my health, and about my childhood was something that was a bit overwhelming to say the least. It took this long for me to finally feel like I could post this, and hopefully it can be useful for someone else.

I always felt that dietary restrictions were fads... all of a sudden people were not supposed to eat dairy, or carbs, or meat, or fish.... it always seemed to me that people were looking for an excuse to make their lives miserable around food rather than enjoying it. I decided early on that I would never go on a "diet". Yes, I would worry about eating organic, healthy foods, but that was the extent of it.

On the other hand I have been dealing with chronic fatigue, aches and pain, getting sick almost every month, as well as extreme PMS for a few years now. I wallowed in the sickness and the exhaustion, thinking that I just had had a kid, that it was normal. But as the months went by and I saw other moms pick back up just like normal, I started to realize that this was not normal. I started noticing that I was telling my daughter that mom needed quiet and calm because she was not feeling well. That she needed to be "nice" to me. And my blood ran cold.

I love my mom more than I can say, but that was how I spent my childhood. Being quiet so as not to bother my mother who had her migraine, cuddling with her in dark rooms or reading with her on her bed for half of the day because she was too tired and sickly to go outside and play. This is not, of course, all that she ever did... but it was enough of my youth that those are the most potent memories that I keep of her. My mother also had an aneurism at the young age of 59, two years ago.

I realized that I was perpetuating my mother's legacy... and that is the last thing that I want to teach my beautiful, healthy, vibrant, daughter.

A lot of friends and family had been suggesting to me to stop eating grains. I'd already stopped eating processed sugar and drinking coffee and tea with no significant change in my energy level. It was time to go the extra mile. Now, accept the difficulty of this. I'm French for goodness sake! People were telling me to stop eating BREAD... BREAD! Croissants! Baguettes! What am I supposed to eat my cheese with? I'm ok with being a stereotype at this point... not eating bread is akin to committing a sin in my book! And even more than bread, rice, oatmeal, couscous... the list goes on. I couldn't even imagine what I would be eating once I gave all of these things up.

But I did it... It's now been four (6!) weeks that I stopped eating all grains except for Quinoa, which is technically a seed. And you know what? I don't think I've felt this good since before starting College. I get home from work in the evening between 9 and 10pm. Before quitting grains, it was all I could do to crawl into bed and wake up blearily the next morning, getting out of bed with the utmost difficulty. These days I get home and I still have enough energy to get stuff done! I also wake up in the morning, even as early as seven, and can just start my day... let me repeat this: I can just start my day! I don't feel groggy, I don't feel like my eyes are glued shut. I just walk around like a normal person, and not a zombie. This is even after staying up later at night than I've had in a long time.

Now I'm not saying everything is fixed. I'm still figuring out the PMS symptoms although they do seem to be milder these days. And it looks like my immune system took a beating over the past few years, so I'm still working on getting rid of colds and allergies, but all in all I feel about 80 percent better since I stopped eating grains. The rest is personal health work that I'm starting to solve, with the help of an Acupuncturist and Chinese medicine.

Quitting grains is not for everyone. It's definitely a very extreme measure that I never thought I would consider. But if you are suffering from chronic fatigue, inflammations, and chronic illness, it is definitely a step that I recommend. If only to test out for a couple of months. It will never hurt, and the benefits could be invaluable!

I'll try and share some of my favorite recipes in the next months, going grain free doesn't have to be boring!

02/23/2015

This was our first week-end off since Christmas and we decided to go visit the little town of Cambria, and drive to see the Elephant Seal Rookery. It was so impressive to watch them stretch out for miles and miles of beach!

These humongous animals migrate every year, thousands of miles, to these rookeries where they give birth, nurse their young, mate, then leave. When we got there we did not see too many nurslings left, but the few we did see were simply adorable.

Instead, there were lots of weaners who were still too fat to go swim in the sea. They stayed in cute little groups, talking and grumping at each other. They stay there close to two months after their mother leaves them, losing weight until they are able to dive under the water like the adults do.

We also got to see a baby Sea Lion as well as other small animals that populate the beach. The whole week-end was quite lovely, and Cambria is quite the impressive little town. We went to visit a farm as we were leaving and also met four little newborn kids. One of the mother goats had had triplets! They were only a day old when we met them and just the most inquisitive little things, already trying to jump on top of their mother's backs, however getting a picture of them was a bit more difficult.

I hope you had a wonderful week-end... My work schedule is changing again soon and I should be back to blogging in earnest, which is exciting!

02/17/2015

Victoria has never been a big bicycle girl. She won her first tricycle years ago during an Easter Egg hunt where she found the golden egg, and never once used it. After a while of trying to encourage her to use that tricycle, then a "big girl" bike with side wheels, etc... I gave up on the endeavor earlier this summer. We gave away all the bicycles and ride on toys and decided to worry about it later when she was truly ready.

Last week, while I was getting myself some well needed new shirts, Victoria spotted a low tricycle. I said nothing when she sat on it... I said nothing when she rode behind me on it. When we got to the front and she asked if we could get it I looked at the price tag (6 whole dollars!) and said, you rode it all through the store without getting bored, so sure... we'll get it.

And you know what? She hasn't gotten bored of that tricycle yet! She's riding it all around the living room and we'll be taking it for an outing soon too.

I am Marie Lafranque. Originally from France I am an artist and mother now living in California who is discovering her affinity with fabrics and thread. I live with my little girl, Victoria, and one old lady dog. Please feel free to follow and comment on our adventures!